Savage Events
by LuminationPresenter
Summary: Dennis the Menace and Walter the softy are now older and at Beanotown university. But their feud is still going strong! Will Dennis ever start to mature and will Walter ever toughen up? And what twists of fate await them as they continue their comedic capers in the hallowed halls of Beanotown university? And what part will Walter's best friend, Lori, have to play? Find out!


**Savage Events**

_**Author's Notes:**__ This is the story of Dennis the Menace and Walter a bit further on from the time of their comic run. In the 1990 Beano annual it showed a cartoon with the ten different stages of Dennis' lifetime with humorous alliteration e.g. "Terrible Toddler, Beastly Boy, Yobbish Youth … Oafish O.A.P." It said that the Dennis of the Beano was an intermediate stage between Beastly Boy and Yobbish Youth. In this story Dennis is a Yobbish Youth or an Abominable Adolescent. You decide which. His bullying tendencies have got worse and he has lost any redeeming quality he might have once had._

_Walter was made the butt of jokes in the Beano for his effeminacy, but the lesser characters who used to pick on Walter have grown up and won't take Dennis' side ever again. Since the time of the Beano, a fan of Walter's, Miss Lori Savage, who urged Walter to get his own back on Dennis the Menace, now stands by Walter and sticks up for him. If you were a true Beano fan and had examined every single issue, you will know who she is._

It was a fine October morning. Pale sunshine streamed down into the quadrangle of Beanotown university. The golden brown leaves of the oaktrees that surrounded the quadrangle blew around in the breeze as Walter and his best friend Lori Savage trudged through the quad.

"It's a beastly pity Bertie and Algie fled Beanotown," said Walter in his usual affected manner. "They said they found it stifling. I wonder if I am really the softest of all… I have endured it. I don't think I could exist anywhere else."

Lori tossed back her long red hair and pulled a face. "Time is at a standstill in Beanotown Walter," she replied. "It get's to some people. I have told you before, you have a certain resilience, however much you may think you are incurably soft."

Walter shrugged. He thought he was lucky to have a best friend like Lori. Who needed Bertie and Algie anymore? Lori was the one who frightened that horrid Dennis away. She was a big girl, with a bold freckled face and fiery red hair that gleamed in the autumn sunlight. She turned to him, a hard look in her green eyes. "Dennis wouldn't pick on you if you just stood up to him for once Walter," she said, seeming to guess his thoughts. "You know how I couldn't understand why you refused to listen to me that first time?"

"Ah yes," said Walter reminiscing. "You said to put a clothes peg on my nose and throw a stink bomb at that menace. Very brave and all that, but a clothes peg has a strong grip and would have hurt my delicate nose…"

Lori gave a chuckle and shook her head. "You are quite something you are," she said. "You are only soft, because you think you are. Dennis is stupid, but he can still see this. It makes him obsessed with picking on you. Clearly he has some personal problem that he's trying to cover up for. But don't worry, I'll just make him suffer for it every time-"

At that moment, there came a ribald jeer from across the quad; "hey softy, look out!" That lurid red and black jersey had come into view. Dennis the Menace stood there at the other end of the quad. Lori gave him a black look and pulled a wooden bat out from under her coat just as Dennis hurled something at Walter. Quick as a flash, Lori knocked the missile back at its originator. Dennis gave a yell. "You – you f-" he choked and tried again. "You pesky softy who is friends with girls."

"I really think that no one in Beanotown could use coarse language, however hard they tried," said Lori grinning. "The law of censorship is too strong. And you threw a stink bomb Dennis? Really? What paucity of imagination! I won't ask you to come over so that I can beat you up again. You must really stink now." Lori had been puzzled at first as to why Dennis kept trying to pick on Walter these days despite the fact that he always failed and Lori always hit back at him. Now she thought she understood. So many of the Beanotown folk were afflicted with chronic compulsions. Dennis had the urge to be a constant nuisance. But it was Walter's complexes that intrigued her. She couldn't stop thinking about her friend. He had never been ashamed of his effeminacy. On the contrary, he liked to flaunt it at every opportunity. It didn't matter that it put the bullies on his case. But he always seemed to want to show off an exaggerated prissiness as well as ludicrous shows of weakness. He sometimes made a commotion at getting mud or dust on him. On occasion he had even pretended to stagger when a feather alighted on his head. Dennis had always seemed compelled to harass and bully Walter. One might have supposed it was because Walter would put up no resistance. But there was more to it. Dennis' mind, such as it was, was stuck in a rut. He could only go through the same motions over and over again. Lori had hoped to dissuade him, by making his efforts as disagreeable for him as possible, but it never seemed to work. Looking back on the activities of Dennis the Menace over the long expanse of time in Beanotown, Lori had to suspect him of being criminally stupid or even slightly deranged.

"Are you quite alright dear Lori?" asked Walter anxiously. Always sensitive, he could see that brooding expression in her green eyes.

"Oh I'm fine," said Lori. "It's Halloween tonight and we're going to the party."

"Oh yes, I should go as a sweet little teddy," said Walter brightly. "And you Lori?"

"My costume is a surprise," said Lori slyly. "But you will find it enchanting."

Dennis the Menace was simply fuming as he entered the lair he had made himself beneath the university site, accessible through a secret passage. Lax as his personal hygiene was, he had to clean the cloying putrescence of the stink bomb of himself. He had always hated Walter for being unashamed of himself. He had hated him before it became apparent that he was a gay. Well, Walter and that awful girl who always fought for him were both in trouble. "Gnash, Gnash!" came a familiar sounding bark. Dennis' old dog Gnasher, an aged wirehaired tripehound came tottering over to him. It still followed him around wherever he went. "Don't bother Gnasher," said Dennis, giving the dog a kick. "Or I will drown you like I did your litter of worthless mongrel pups. How a male dog got himself saddled with a mongrel litter I don't know." Dennis shook his head. "Right, now I know how to fix queer Walter. I will deal a blow against the whole LGBT community here. Curly and Pieface have turned all self-righteous and started calling me a bully and a trouble maker, but I have new chums! A reckoning will come!"

What dastardly scheme has Dennis cooked up? Find out next chapter!


End file.
